Prayer Verses on Soul Culture

This and next few blogs will be on a Prayer I have composed which I use daily during my prayer time. I intend to clarify and set right many spiritual concepts through these verses. We shall start with the first verse in this blogpost.

Verse 1 of 17:

“And Hence Now Begins an Exposition of Prayer Verses against Soul Culture.

Let the Universal God Who is Beyond the Three Gunas and This Manifested World Shall Listen to My Prayers”

Objection 1: Only when a new scripture that is expounded after successful achievement of the proposed ends can have such a starting.

Answer: These are just prayer verses and not a moksha sastra. However, author believes in the need and necessity of such a prayer at certain times. Now can be termed such a time where such a prayer becomes a necessity..

Objection: Have a dharshan been made through this path? How can a sadhaka be sure of the efficacy of such a prayer as this?

Answer: These verses are not about the ends but means towards the ends.

Objection: If that is so, Why there is no Hindu Sastra or scripture that talks against soul culture?

Answer: You are right that all Sanskrit Sastras are silent about existence or problems related to soul culture.

But you should also ask in the same vein, why all Hindu sastras are also slient about the necessity of walking on the path of Truth.

Objection: Why are they silent?

Because “Soul Culture” and “Path of Truth” are like light and darkness. You cannot walk on the path of truth when you are mired in soul culture. Hence, it is always attempted to keep the advanced civilizations outside soul culture as can be seen from the history of mankind.

Objection: This is not convincing. Soul culture must always have been existed.

Answer: Yes, that is also possible. For example, the most ancient scripture – the Great Sage Kapila’s scripture on sankhya yoga starts with the following premise: “therefore a scripture against three kinds of pains...”. The author believes that the three kinds of pains are all related to soul culture.

Objection: But neither sankhya nor any other Sanskrit scriptures talks about how to stay away from souls or any means or sadhanas towards that..This might mean soul culture is not a problem at all in achieving liberation.

Answer: Your above objection arises from a total misunderstanding of the concept of spirituality itself. The whole concept of spirituality is to achieve independence or freedom and that requires reaching a state of Atman which is One and Independent that offers complete freedom and blissfulness. There is no concept of existence of both individual atman and group atman (atmic plane) - like the samasthi and viyasti concept as in the case of individual mind and universal mind etc. The very concept of spirituality is to reach “individualization” or “isolation” but in full consciousness of the universal atman. The soul culture is exact opposite of this - where there is always a movement towards ‘collection’ rather than ‘isolation’.

Objection: A movement towards ‘isolation’ will lead to ‘involution’ that could ultimately lead to ‘kevala’ state where you go back to the stage of ‘powerlessness’ – the state from which monads descend as per theosophy. Hence walking on a path of isolation will not lead to liberation.

Answer: As per theosophy and shaiva siddantha, we started from ‘kevala’ state and hence liberation can not mean ‘isolation’ which is akin to ‘kevala’. However, the liberated state is not same as the ‘kevala’ state of theosophy (i.e. monads) or the shaiva siddhanta. The spiritual concept of liberation as per shaiva siddantha is to reach the blissful state of universal god (shiva) while maintaining independence and freedom. That state is not ‘kevala’ state mentioned by you. We evolve from theosophical kevala state to spiritual kevala state which is liberation. But you have the option of moving into theosophical state of “super human beings” instead of spiritual liberation. But all those who have reach such super human stage has to descend again at some point of time as ‘evolution of super human beings’ is not the purpose of existence of the world.

Objection: The path of sankhya of Kapila is for evolution and not involution. Similarly, the theosophical path of super human beings may require soul culture.

Answer: No. Sankya Yoga is a spiritual treatise and not meant to be a sastra for evolution of super human beings. Hence it comes within the path of involution and not evolution (into super beings) – we evolve from monadic kevala state of helplessness by descending into matter and we slowly start to individualize from our kevala state of collection (i.e. astral, animal, mental planes...). When we reach the zenith of descending (evolution), we become super human beings and then we realize its uselessness and then the path of involution (nivritti) starts where we have to shun souls. The Shaiva siddhana states the realization that “by being a super human being amounts to nothing – the time we realize, for sure, the existence of universal god” is called ‘Pathi Jnana’ or ‘God consciousness’. The knowledge required to become super human being can only be termed as ‘pasa jnana’ or ‘worldly knowledge’ which is no use for liberation.

Objection: But the knowledge of world is required for liberation. Hence becoming super beings is required for liberation.

No. The knowledge may be required/usefull but it is INCORRECT to say that you should necessarily become a super human being before you can embark on the path of liberation. That may have been the fate of first person of human kind– those before sankya era. But now we have spirituality. May be the path of sankhya yoga was expositioned after the realization of futility of evolution into super beings (after ancient theosophical movement reached its zenith) was understood. Hence sankhya yoga, though deals with theosophical related concepts like cosmogenesis and tattvas, it still starts with the verse – “let us explore how to be relieved of soul culture”.

Its upto you to take a circuitous and harassing route of acquiring all sorts of karma to become super human being before embarking on the path of liberation – reliving history. God does not force you into any option – but Has given you sufficient intelligence and learning. Hence it is intelligent to choose the shorter path that leads you to much ‘Greater Super Being’ – that of being associated with the One who created this universe – rather than increasing your ‘Anava Mala’ i.e. your egotism further and further by trying to become a creator yourself.

Objection 2: It is NOT right to make such a prayer for ‘de-association’ of souls or soul culture. It might lead to unforeseen troubles.

No. My prayer is clearly addressed to the ‘Universal God’ and NOT to any ‘super beings’ or ‘God with Forms’. “God with Form” is not required for material life and in this case even for spiritual life.

The Universal God who created this universe would know how to actuate this prayer. I shall delve on this further as we move on to other verses.

Objection 3: Human beings themselves are said to consists of three souls – animal soul (astral/manas), Human soul (manas/buddhi) and divine soul (atmic spirit). Hence this prayer becomes ridiculous – if human themselves are aid to consist within himself souls, how can there be a prayer against soul culture?

Your theory onlybis ridiculous. Human beings only consist of manas, buddhi and atman. But those are organs as per Sankya and are not souls – unless otherwise some ‘super human beings’ decide create such human beings henceforth. The sankhya yoga is precisely meant against such ridiculous theories.

Objection 4: There are many scriptures on paths like yoga, bakthi etc. – do they not lead to liberation?

They do lead to liberation if you are not mired in soul culture. But if you are, then they lead to some kind of ‘pseudo-sattvic world’ artificially created by some section of humans – a place of ‘collection’ and not ‘isolation’ – Universal God has nothing to do with such worlds. All of them have to take human birth again in order to achieve liberation as per Patanjali’s Yoga sastra.

Objection 5: Why not pray against only those who obstruct your path of liberation?

I hope this objection does not arise from the concept of ‘three kinds of souls within human composition' ’. THERE IS NO ANIMAL OR DIVINE SOUL. GOD HAS CREATED US ALL EQUAL. May be we can instead say “all souls has potential of being of animal nature”. May be you should be asking infact that "Is it God who create souls? or Do souls really exist? etc"

However, there is some point in this objection of yours - I shall deal with it on later verses.

Objection 6: Even Universal God does not interfere in our lives even for spiritual ends. Hence your prayer will be of no use.

Answer: So be it. I believe He will manifest his help in some way or other. If not, so be it. I would rather believe in Sri Ramakrishna’s world – ‘Don’t break your head on the nature of God. Our minds are too small to comprehend everything about the nature of God. It is enough if you have this belief – ‘God do exists and He will listen to our prayers”.

Even otherwise, when there is no other way, a prayer gives you tremendous satisfaction and indirectly works on your subconscious and super conscious stratum and your eco-system. It is essential to make clear your conviction about the path you would like to travel.